End of an Era (Project Chrysalis Book 2), John Gold [ebook reader online txt] 📗

“I had to be smart and really want it. There wasn’t much of a choice.”

We run through the tormented forest, having battered it with a dozen meteorite strikes. An entire army is starting to gather on the outskirts.

Femida is a genius! That’s the only way I can describe how good she is with her sword and armor. It isn’t even about leveled up skills; she just knows how to use them. Something more to do with efficiency than experience. It doesn’t take her more than a second to activate her armor.

“It looks like you’ve practiced quite a bit. Your sword work is impressive!”

“It’s nothing. If you only knew how good my brothers are, you’d get what I mean. I just haven’t had the chance to fight really experienced opponents. Nobody pushes me to the edge of my knowledge and experience.”

“What about our swordsmen? I mean, master swordsmen.”

“That’s a class - not the art of wielding a sword. They’re weak when it comes to fighting enemies who have real combat experience sword-fighting or fighting in another style. Almost none of them are real swordsmen. Hey, a good fighter can spot an inexperienced master.”

“That’s pretty brutal. I can’t even imagine what someone better than you would look like.”

“Sure, because you don’t have the experience. All you have is raw power to kill, but not the ability to use it.”

“Thanks for the compliment.”

“I’m just being objective. You don’t have enough experience.”

“Such wisdom coming from a little girl.”

We take another short break, and I wait and think this time. The undead are preparing a powerful counteroffensive and gathering their forces to clear the forest. From what I can tell, their advanced intellect will have them raid the forest to take our advantage away.

“Sagie, we need to leave or find a way to destroy that army. They’re going to overpower us with their numbers.”

“Sure, but where can we go? Do you think they won’t have more waiting for us elsewhere? We can’t leave the location. There is something I can do, but I’ll need sacrifices.”

Fem looks at me leerily and expectantly before finally replying.

“Screw you. What do you need from me?”

“Flesh terrors, five of them. And I’ll need five minutes to prepare for the ritual.”

“The ritual?”

“Go, go, there isn’t much time. Come back in ten minutes. I’ll paralyze them myself, so just get them here.”

The last meteors boosted my level to the point where I can use powerful spells without worrying about the consequences. My scalable items are pushing my intellect to the point where a meteor just about killed me with the recoil. I need to switch to defense, build a base I can use to take out everything around. And for that I need victims.

Femida brings me seven flesh terrors, and that works for me - the more, the merrier. Surprisingly, they’re immune to poison. They have weak mental resistance, however, and rune spikes do a good job holding them in place. Apparently, the necromancer dropped their mental resistance to make them easier to manage, a smart move until they come up against someone who can take control of them. The fact that they’re in complete control of the field of battle means they don’t have to worry about something like that happening right now, but it’s a vulnerability that could be used against them in the forest. Unfortunately, I don’t have any spells that might let me control an undead army. All I can do is control one chimera or undead. There are certain ways around the restriction, but I have other things to worry about right now.

There are lots of different spells that can be used to do damage across a wide area. The most well-known and universal are meteors, fire storms, tornados, chain lightning, death whirlpool, and death star. Oddly enough, I have seals for all of them on my chest.

“Sagie, hurry, they’re getting close. We won’t be able to leave once they get here.”

I hand her two stakes.

“Stick these in yourself. They’ll combine our health with the sacrifices, and I’ll be able to heal you from within about a hundred meters away if anything happens.”

Too busy to keep track of her, I get to work on what I have cooked up. A fire storm crashes into the forest right where the undead are. A second later, another slams home not far from where we are, the heat bathing us. I’m going to burn this forest down and everything inside it!

From my meditation pose on the ground, I notice that Fem’s armor is changing. It’s pulsing with red veins.

“What’s going on? Do you never turn your armor off? We’re going to die because of that blood-sucker!”

“No, your ritual bumped it up to forty percent. I have quadruple amplification now.”

“Hm, that makes sense. The ritual was designed for blood knights, though that’s not how I use it. We have a little more than four million. It needs ten million health to max out.”

“Looks like it.”

“Is that an ordinary sword?”

“No, rare. I got it from a boss in a dungeon.”

“I mean, it isn’t the kind blood knights use. If you were going to spend that much money, why not go the whole way?”

“I could only take one thing. Between the family armor and sword, I picked the former, and haven’t regretted that choice for a second. I couldn’t put in any more money after I created my character.” Fem looks down at her feet sadly.

“That’s your business. I was just asking.”

We stay there until evening, killing any undead that gets close. First, there are skeletons and ghouls, zombies and animals raised from the dead. They’re followed by chimeric undead like flesh terrors, Barrow-wights, spider-like creatures, and other forms of nastiness. The finale is two groups of bone